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Naveen Kumar Korupolu and Basa Ravikiran are waiting for summer and a chance to get out into Finnish nature. They go home to Hyderabad for Christmas.

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Finland's welfare system appeals to Indian IT engineers

Indian IT engineers Naveen Kumar Korupolu (32) and Basa Ravikiran (33) arrived in Helsinki from Hyderabad with their families five years ago. They have successfully fought off both long, dark winters and cultural differences. Fins are nice and life feels safe.

May 10, 2010
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Text: Carl-Gustav Lindén; Photo: Mikael Nybacka

"I have a sauna at home. It is being used a lot during winter," says
Basa.

Both work for the Indian consultancy firm Wipro, whose customers
include Nokia. Their job is to test new software for mobile telephones.
Compared to India work here is well-organised, flexible and
stress-free. Days are short.

"In India you will be working 10-hour days. And you can add a three
hours commute to that. Here I have five extra hours to spend with my
family every day," says Basa.

Their wives also work, while the children attend day nursery. Their
salary is double what they would get in India, and even though taxes
and higher living costs erode the difference, neither have any plans of
returning to India. They praise the welfare system.

"It feels like I get more back than what I actually pay in taxes,"
says Naveen.

It is important too for a vegetarian South Indian that the selection
of Indian vegetables has grown over the past few years.

Missing the parents

There are hundreds of Indian engineers working in Finland. At
Nokia's research facility alone there are nearly 100. Wipro employs
some 300 people in Finland, their competitor Tata Consultancy Services
employs 600. Naveen knows several Indians who have moved to work for
Finnish companies and who have settled permanently in Finland. He
himself does not entertain that idea. In not too long his parents are
going to need help to manage at home in Hyderabad, and he sees it as
his duty to return because there is no welfare system to speak of
there. Finish laws also forbids a family reunion in Finland for
Naveen's parents, and visa rules mean they can only visit twice a
year.

"It is bad that we cannot bring our parents over, they need our
support and in India we care a lot about our parents," says Naveen.

He has hardly seen his younger brother's son, and misses festivals
and family parties.

Toughening debate

Even though Basa and Naveen haven't met with any opposition, the
attitude to foreign labour has hardened in step with the worsening of
the economic crisis in Finland.

And next year the parliamentary election will kick up a political
debate on immigration which already is beginning to swing in a populist
direction. The right of centre government works actively to recruit
more foreign workers, a policy so far being questioned only by the
marginal True Finns party.

But the tide is turning. Recently the Social Democrat's former
spokesperson Eero Heinäluoma demanded that the government started
cutting immigration and offer jobs to unemployed Finns. Heinäluoma
leads the party's parliamentary group and has been severely criticised
not only by the government but from within his own party for pitcing
the unemployed against immigrants. Yet he gets support from trade
unions.

Engineers are among those who are hardest hit by the crisis, because
many of their jobs are linked to the export industry. There are now
11,000 engineers looking for a job, and Pertti Porokari from the trade
union New Engineers is dead against the official policy of recruiting
foreign labour. He argues a "patriotic" policy should aim to employ
those who are already unemployed, even though he is not in principle
against immigrants who are integrated into society.

Too many students

There are also too many engineers being educated in Finland, and
Porokari has called for the number of university places to be cut by a
third because the system was designed at a time when the world looked
different than today.

"It should be possible to predict the situation four to five years
from now when the engineers enter the labour market."

He also argues that free education for foreigners should be
scrapped, seeing as most return to their home countries when they
finish their studies and contribute nothing to Finland in return. He
does not accept the employers' arguments that foreign workers have high
skills that are needed.

"There's something strange in the argument that Indians are so
mathematically clever."

The real argument, according to Porokari, is that employers can push
down wages by using foreign labour.

Finland is tempting

The Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation, TEKES,
sees the development as nothing but positive, however.

"It is encouraging that Finnish innovators attract Indian companies
who wish to set up shop here and employ Indian experts," says Kari
Komulainen, head of technology at TEKES.